Dear Diary

A 3686-post collection

Sideways!

It doesn't matter which order things are done in, only that they are done. Therefore, it's no surprise that my little darlings have adapted to the 'get up and do it' routine whilst my Beloved still drags their heels.

Mayhem has taken to sorting the laundry as part of his morning routine. Chaos still needs a lot of reminding, but she is getting used to the way things are meant to go.

Beloved... is working late because Melbourne Cup. Their work gets a great deal of traffic in November and shoring up the servers is always work for when the office is relatively empty. And they need babysitting because since when has a vital upgrade ever gone smoothly?

That's right. Never.

My plans to co-write a book with some friends have gone down the tube. Alas alack. BUT the good news is that I have permission to go forth and write it myself. With a few minor changes.

Writing commences officially in 2018. But I've written enough world-building facts to start it today. O, for some resolve not to write it immediately. I have to focus on Beauties and the Beastly.

I have enough titles and potential in my queue to keep me going until 2033. I should definitely have some form of fandom by then. And I can only hope that it doesn't turn septic.

Some fandoms are great. Some... are possessive. And some turn in on themselves and go rotten. The fandom is not the thing. You can love the thing without loving the fandom. Hell, you can love the thing without loving the creator of the thing. It's allowed.

And when my fandom blooms... if it blooms at all... I will have no control whatsoever over what they choose to do. And that's a little on the scary side.

But I'll never get a fandom if I don't ship KFZ off to the next agent-in-waiting. Ah, procrastination, please fuck right off.

S-L-O-W-L-Y

If there's anything more irritating to live with than a case of the Slo-Mo's, I can't think of it right now.

I couldn't get to sleep until Beloved came home. Well, not properly. I managed to cat-nap until that time. And then I woke at four in the morning. Too tired to sleep.

Which is a bitch if there ever was one.

Since Beloved was home late, I gave up on the morning walk and dived straight into getting the kids organised.

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Yoiks and Awaaaaaay...

Once again, I got rejected. Once again, I do this nonse:

[Shown: Daffy Duck repeatedly swinging into a tree]

I figured this was going to take some time. When I run out of likely candidates in one agency, I will try another. Until I run down to the bottom of my 30-person list.

Only then will I put up Kung Fu Zombies on Amazon and Smashwords.

But in the meantime, there's a new short story for free. It's currently only available in

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I'm 44

...and everything's gone to shit. I got rejected by yet another agent, the birthday card from MeMum hasn't arrived yet (three raspberries for the Aussie postal service), and the careful timing of this morning did not account for Beloved dragging their feet until such time that I have to do my blogging on the road. Huzzah.

Thank providence for laptops, mobile hotspots, and USB car charger ports. Otherwise, I would be supremely miffed at my Beloved.

All going well, I will achieve

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Swag Day!

Celebrations are done and I have yet to scoop up the wrapping paper. But this year was a decent haul.

Beloved gift-wrapped the meds I sent them to get and the pegs I asked for. Sneaky sod. But I also got some sweet tech out of the deal.

  • A shower speaker that I can blue-tooth link to my phone and blast Steam Powered Giraffe whilst I lather up.
  • A bluetooth radio deelie that I can also link with my phone and have
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...party?

My birthday is this Tuesday, so we're having a little mini-party today. Cake, family, and presents. Nothing huge, hugely expensive, or extravagant.

I still count that trip to Tucson in March as a late-Christmas/early-birthday present combo. That was a budgetary blowout of epic proportions. Therefore anything extra today is a blessing.

Beloved has promised me something I will enjoy but they will probably regret. I have to confess to being interested in seeing what the heck it is. And then try

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Merry October

It's the first of October and I've yet to isolate anything for Chaos' costume, this year. She wants to be her gemsona, sweet child.

That means a wee bit of running around for things. Including the figuring out of how to do the gem on the cheap. Green leggings and arm things. The more skin I cover with fabric, the less I have to cover with makeup. Even when I know where to get some good stuff on the cheap? It's just

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Achievement Unlocked

The plastics cupboard has had all its non-essential and extra-cluttering items removed! Hooray. Now, if we should ever need more than three large or medium Systema sealing articles, we can toddle up to the shed and fetch them. I mean, we have HUGE amounts of plastic containers.

Now, we need no more.

Still on the agenda is the pots cupboard and the gizmos cupboard. The least-use doohickeys will head shed-wards, but the other stuff for pots and pans might be an issue

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Slow starts, low batteries, and recreated inconvenience

Yes, I've stopped using Steam Powered Giraffe lyrics. Well spotted, you.

SPG has helped me cope with a lot of things, and now 'grief' can join that number. I'll try to tone it down from now on. I can be... kind of annoying on the topic of my favourite band.

As you might expect, grief comes with a seemingly endless patch of personal recharge issues. Low batteries, in this case, are mine. Few spoons to drag myself through the day.

And since

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Why'd you have to go?

There is a shady patch underneath a banksia plant. There, a cat lies at peace. She used to hang out there when she was alive, trying to hypnotise the birds down so she could 'play' with them. It's the best place for her to rest, now.

Beloved and Mayhem were kind enough to squirrel away the feline accessories so I wouldn't have to. And I thank them for that mercy.

I'm still sad about it. I expect to be randomly crying about

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'Twas nice to know you

She gave us a scare, yesterday. Life with a cat wouldn't be life with a cat if they didn't give you the absolute horrors for their continued well-being at least once a week. After a month of generally sitting around and not doing very much, Shellebelle decided to wander off for a majority of the day.

Naturally, I feared that I'd never find her again. Mayhem and I took to wandering around the house and yard, trying to spot her. Trying to

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Hello, Goodbye...

Of all the unfair things that this world gives us, it's the fact that our pets don't live as long as we do.

I spent my bedtime last night crying and shaking because I know that my cat has to die. She is not the happiest of campers and spends too much time just staying very still. She'll eat chicken hearts with gusto, but that seems to be all the gusto that she has left.

She can't clean herself. She's taken to

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Maintaining progress

I have my little darlings coming back today. We've successfully minimised all the kitchen drawers, as well as the crockery and glass cupboards. We still have to move all the spare glasses to an OOSOOM1 location.

In my list: minimising the gadgets cupboard, minimising the plastics cupboard, and minimising the pots cupboard. All whilst keeping the floors swept, the remaining dishes clean, and general debris from returning to the household.

NOT helped by the fact that we keep getting Lootcrates, and

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Your fave is human

There's been some... noise... on Tumblr lately, concerning my favourite band and... well. It's not good noise.

Steve Negrete, the band's sound engineer, made some regrettable choices in regards to how he treated a few younger fans. As far as touching them goes, he kissed one or more fans who were on the very cusp of the age of consent, without getting their permission. I know not where the kisses went.

This has been magnified into rumours of Mr Negrete being a

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To the dumps!

Fret not, dear readers, I am emotionally fine. What's happening today is that I am hauling a veritable mountain of accumulated detritus out to the local dump.

I will be counting car-loads. My nifty little TARDIS car does have a carrying capacity, despite all my insistence that its volume is infinite. AND I will be doing this after my writing is done.

I'm still in the process of evicting extraneous plates and cups. I've yet to get around to evicting extraneous glass,

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